Whitfield Diffie

Bailey Whitfield 'Whit' Diffie ForMemRS is an American cryptographer and mathematician and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography along with Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle. Diffie and Hellman's 1976 paper New Directions in Cryptography introduced a radically new method of distributing cryptographic keys, that helped solve key distribution—a fundamental problem in cryptography. Their technique became known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The article stimulated the almost immediate public development of a new class of encryption algorithms, the asymmetric key algorithms.

5 June 1944

Born on the same birth day (5 June): Anke Behmer • Cam Atkinson • Elizabeth Gloster • Erasmo Carlos • Eric Hollies • James Connolly • Jason White (American racing driver) • Johan Gadolin • Jorge Daponte • Margaret of Valois, Duchess of Berry • Mary Kay Bergman • Matthew Scarlett • Patrick Head • Paul Soros • Peter Wtewael • Ron Livingston • Ronnie Dyson • Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough • Torry Holt • Troye Sivan

Born in the same month (June 1944): Angela King (environmentalist) • Ban Ki-moon • Chris Spedding • David Curry • Gennady Zyuganov • Glenn Shorrock • Janric Craig, 3rd Viscount Craigavon • Jeff Beck • Laurie Colwin • Marvin Hamlisch • Patrick Sercu • Ray Davies • Robert D. Keppel • Tony Scott